Clive Best

Glastonbury Abbey

After leaving Swanage we drove back via Dorchester and headed for Glastonbury. Glastonbury has become the centre of the magic following ancient Arthurian and Druid legends. It really is a wonderful place, which after a Peliolithic history supposedly became the first Christian church in Europe, predating Roman conversion after a mission from Joseph of Amritsa the cousin of Christ. This is also the basis for the Proms hymn Jerusalem - “and did those feet in ancient times tread upon England’s mountains green”. There certainly was a church here in 600 AD which burnt down in 1100 and upon which the huge Abbey was built. This fell victim to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. In reality it was probably a political move to wrest power from Rome but the end

Lunch in 400 yr old Pub

result was terrible wanton destruction - most felt here when visualising just how wonderful the Abbey of Glastonbury would have been. 

King Arthur was buried in Avalon which is thought to be Glastonbury - in the centre of Wessex. The legends of chivalry, Guinavieve and Merlin now live on in many exotic shops and premises. There is no doubt that Glastonbury has a mystical feel to it. There are some wonderful buildings including the (as usual pub) where we had lunch. The pub is 400 years old with fantastic wooden panelling - excellent beer and food. Afterwards we went round the Abbey and I had a “rest” to recover from the beer before heading off to Wells.

Wells Cathedral

Wells was a real surprise. It is a well worth any detour to vist. The Cathedral and the ancient Bishop’s palace resplendent with moat and drawbridge is superb. The overall ambiance is good with specialist butchers and bakers as towns always used to have before the rise of  Tesco’s and fast food - however Starbucks is there. Wells is definitely a place we could live in as it is just 20 minutes from Bristol airport - has good local shops and a beautiful environment.

Wells High Street

We have a confession to make - before arriving in Wells we passed Street and discovered Clarks Village. Clarks are a great company for the UK and export all over the world, their shoes are high quality and just as good as any Italian brand like Geox. A quick detour found me a pair of summer sandle/sneakers for 20 quid -

Bishop Wells/Bath

excellent. I had no idea that Clark’s headquaters/factory were in Somerset. We need to treasure and promote the best of British products .

From Wells we drove through Cheddar to Weston Super Mare as we wanted to see the beach resort opposite Penarth where we used to live. We had heard that Weston had become popular again and it does have a long sandy beach. However the tide goes out half a mile because it is in the Severn Estuary and like many British seaside resorts it has seen better days. My strategy for finding Hotels didn’t quite work out in Weston because the nearest hotel was full. They sent us on a wild goose chase to find the Commodore hotel with free Wifi. It turned out the hotel

Weston Super Mare

 was in the opposite direction to that described and north of Weston in the next bay. The hotel is excellent value and very friendly so no complaints there - although someone seems to have pinched my newspaper this morning.